White male privilege responsible for shooting, professor argues

A history professor at Pasadena City College blamed mass shootings, such as the recent tragedy at Sandy Hook, on “frustrated white male privilege.”

Hugo Schwyzer, a professor of history and gender studies, told National Review Online that mass murders in the U.S. are increasingly committed by white males suffering from “cognitive dissonance,” in a country that is trending toward multiculturalism. White males feel “powerless compared to everyone else around them,” he said.

Schwyzer expanded on this theory in an article he wrote in response to the Aurora, Colorado shooting last July.

“White men are raised to expect to be welcomed wherever they go,” he wrote. “When they find that that automatic welcome isn’t forthcoming, they tend to be indignant. When angry middle-class whites gather together in political groups to “take back our country,” what they want to grab back are the privileges they sense they’ve lost.”

The dangers of white male privilege are compounded by permissive gun laws, according to Schwyzer.

“Lax gun laws provided the means for the Colorado theater massacre,” he wrote. “A yet-unexplained psychotic break provided the likely motive. And at least in part, white male privilege determined both the location and the scale.”

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